“The Quiet Maid,” an upcoming feature film financed by the sale of NFTs, has landed a global sales deal.
The film, a social satire previously called “Calladita” from Spanish filmmaker Miguel Faus, sold its worldwide sales rights to Ibero-American entertainment company FilmSharks from Iberseries, the industry conference held this week in Madrid. Deadline first reported the deal.
“The Quiet Maid” follows the lows and highs of a Colombian maid as she works for a lavishly wealthy and potentially deceptive Spanish family on the coast of Catalonia. It is based on a short film by Faus, which was picked up by streaming service Max last year after a period on the festival circuit.
Faus soon after used the 15-minute film to sell NFT cards, with the aim of raising money for a feature-length version of the same story. The NFTs were a success, raising a production budget of $750,000; they offered holders behind-the-scenes access to the film’s production and control, through a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), over a portion of the film’s final proceeds.
In January, “Ocean’s Eleven” director Steven Soderbergh awarded Faus $100,000 to finish the film, from an on-chain fund established with Decentralized images and intended to help promising filmmakers who are open to non-traditional film financing methods.
Legend Steven Soderbergh just presented us with a Completion Funds award for our film CALLADITA at Sundance.
HUGE thanks to @DCP_Foundation, our entire cast and crew, and the 500+ people who made this film possible. pic.twitter.com/Br8DFmlAzc
— Miguel Faus 🎥 CALLADITA FILM (@miguelfaus) January 21, 2023
While Faus is thrilled to have successfully gotten his film across the finish line with blockchain financing, he believes the technology that made the project’s realization possible can only take it so far and cannot define its artistic quality .
“I don’t think the film’s success comes from the innovative and decentralized way it was financed.” Faus told Declutter. “That was a success in itself, but now the film has to find its audience and appeal to them or not, regardless of how it was made.”
Steven Soderbergh Presents Blockchain Award for NFT-Funded Film ‘Calladita’
“The Quiet Maid” will have its world premiere next month in competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia. It will compete in the First Feature category.